EAST PROVIDENCE — The East Providence High School football team's preparation for the start of 2024 Rhode Island Interscholastic League campaign is well underway and continues over the next week in the lead up to the beginning of the Townies' Division II regular season slate.

EPHS, now in its fourth year under the direction of head coach Jon Stringfellow and his staff, started pre-season workouts on August 15 with conditioning exercises then put on pads the following week, culminating with a joint practice session at Townie Stadium with Cranston East on Saturday, Aug. 24.

East Providence hosts a controlled scrimmage with visiting Portsmouth on Saturday, Aug. 31. Then on Friday, Sept. 6, renowned former EPHS head coach Sandy Gorham brings his Barrington team to Townie Stadium for the teams' annual Injury Fund game.

Of note this year, the RIIL has instituted a new scheduling format, which allows schools to pick between 20 and 50 percent of their opponents with the league assigning the rest. The change also includes for the first time ever, regular season contests against both teams from outside of their own division and out-of-state competitors that impact playoff qualification. Teams will be afforded points for their wins based on a strength of opposition measure akin to the RPI/Ratings Percentage Index used at the collegiate level.

In addition for postseason purposes, schools can choose the amount of games that count towards their playoff qualifications based on the sport. For football, specifically, schools can play a minimum of seven to a maximum of nine games that apply to earning a postseason berth.

Those changes come immediately into focus for EPHS, which chose the 80-20% scheduling criteria, when the Townies travel to West Warwick for their 2024 Division II regular season opening Thursday night, Sept. 12. Kickoff is 6 p.m. The Wizards were one of two games, along with Shea, that East Providence set up on its own. The Townies will also count eight games towards their pursuit of a D-II playoff bid.

"My point was we're in Division II, so let's take of that. Let's schedule other teams from Division II," Stringfellow said of the new format. "As soon as it went out I decided to pick up West Warwick and Shea because I knew they were Division II teams, so the thought was let's pick up two teams and stay in the league. And right away they were like, 'yeah, let's play. Let's get it done.' So it was pretty good to get them locked into games and I didn't have to worry about going to different leagues or out-of-state. So it was nice."

Stringfellow said for his sport he believes the system will be a benefit to not only the top schools like Hendricken and LaSalle, but also those in the ranks just below where he considers the Townies to be along with other sides like South Kingstown, Cumberland, Portsmouth, Barrington and St. Raphael could or can move up or down between D-I and D-II depending on the RIIL's two-year realignment table.

"For a football perspective you can't have a four-team Division I," Stringfellow said, referring to the alignment used by the RIIL for the last four seasons. "It's not fair to anyone. And it gives the LaSalles and Hendrickens the 50-percent assignment rule, so they can schedule out-of-state games that matter. And for us, it makes sense playing down against Division III teams. But for other teams it gives them a chance to win some games...This is way the league is going. We're going to play who we play and then see what happens from there."